AU Ending
by AleciaB
Summary: We all know what has happened in reality. This short story is simply an AU ending to the love story we know. Not how I would personally choose to end it but its an option being that KB is finished soon.
_Warning, this is not a positive story but I have to prepare myself for the worst. I wrote the following inside an hour. No reviewing, no spell check. It just came out of somewhere ….. I just hate what they did._

"Oh my God that was close!" Beckett exclaimed as she jumped up off the floor. She brushed the dirt off her blue denim jeans. Nearby, Castle warily stood up, distracted by something further away. She gave him a quizzical look concerned he had been injured in the crossfire of bullets. "Castle, are you ok? Were you hurt?"

He was focused on something that he started to pursue. He clutched at his stomach but he seemed unharmed. She couldn't hear what he had clearly heard. She hurried after Castle who rushed across the large storage facility room. Strangely, her ears weren't ringing but she didn't hear what he was following either.

"Beckett!" He called loudly.

"I'm right here, Castle." Confusion set in. Why wasn't he hearing her? He started to run. "Castle!" She called after him but he kept on running until he disappeared behind a row of stacked cartons. She holstered her Glock then jogged after him. His foot falls softly thumped on the concrete floor of the warehouse. His sounds echoed in the empty space she followed him across. Daylight was quickly leaving them. They had to leave before darkness set in.

"Beckett! Kate! Where are you?"

"I'm behind you! Rick! Stop." She broke into a run to close the space between them, her hair bouncing behind her. She didn't hear her boots on the hard floor.

Castle turned in a circle one, twice, searching everywhere around him. "Kate!" Then continued to run in the direction he had been paving.

Kate slowed up when she entered a long aisle of shelves, confused by his bizarre behavior. "Why can't you see me?"

Two men carrying guns poked out of an aisle to her right. They glanced left to right then started to sprint towards her.

"Get the fuck outa here before the cops get here." The taller one said.

Kate stopped dead pulling out her gun.

"Stop! N. Y. P. D. Drop your weapons!" She yelled but they kept running at her. It was as though they didn't see her. "Stop! Put your hands up!" She screeched seeing her gun tremble at the apex of her hands. Her knuckles were white and bloodied. She pulled the trigger. She missed. They continued sprinting, right through her.

Kate spun about to chase them. She took three paces.

"Oh my God! Kate!" Richard cried. "Kate. Baby! What have you done!"

"Rick!" Kate turned about hearing the panic in his voice. She ran as fast as she could in the direction his sounds originated. She rushed through an opened doorway into a loading bay where she saw him. She paused to ensure the area was safe. It was clear.

"Castle! What are you doing?" She saw him crouched over a body, a woman's body. She holstered her gun as she paced to where he was. The last of the sun was shining on his shoulders and head, on the body he was hunched over. She could hear the sirens of police cars and ambulance quickly approaching.

"Castle, who is she?" She reached out to his shoulder to pull him back but he didn't move, or respond. "Castle, listen to me. Is she dead?" She took a further step closer to the right to check on the victim. She saw the woman's head slumped over Castle's arm, her bloodied face, her matted long dark hair.

Kate's breath hitched in her throat. The dead woman looked just like she did. Beckett understood why Castle was crying. Mistaken identity. He was sobbing her name. "Castle!" She insisted. "It not me, Baby. I'm here. I'm right here. She just looks like me." She grabbed at his right arm with desperation and shook him to get his attention. He didn't react to her at all. "Castle! I'm right here."

"Kate, what did we do? Why didn't we stop?"

Kate panted with panic. Rick lifted the lifeless body up against his pressing her to his chest.

"Castle! I'm here. Right here. I'm alive."

She saw movement further away. She glanced up to see Esposito and Ryan run up the loading ramp their guns out. She rushed at them knowing they would help her.

"Espo, Ryan! Thank God you're here. He cannot see me."

They hurried past her and she followed them back to Rick.

"Castle. Is that Beckett?" Esposito asked as they approached. They crouched before Castle.

"She's dead. She's dead. Loksat killed her." Rick cried, letting her body down as his body slumped. He rolled to his back beside Kate's body too weakened.

"I'm not dead." She cried watching as her husband laid out exposing his chest. There was blood over his shirt at his abdomen.

"Is that your blood?" Ryan asked as his hand left Kate's neck. "She's gone," he said to Esposito. "Pull open his shirt."

Esposito ripped open the Rick's shirt to be confronted by the extent of the wounds.

"I got shot." Rick muttered, struggling to maintain consciousness. "She ran after them. They corralled her. She had no chance."

"Stay with us Castle, paramedics are coming." Espo pleaded. "Stay with us Buddy."

Rick looked upwards at the silhouette standing over him. He softly smiled. "She's ok. She's gonna be ok."

Ryan followed Castle's gaze to see an empty space. He looked back to Rick who had closed his eyes.

"CPR Espo. We have to do CPR." He yelled. "Castle's dying, he's dying …"

 _Sorry guys. Wrote it in an hour, only draft of it. I had to process the news in the only way I could. Write it out of me._


End file.
